


No Longer Afraid of the Dark or Midday Shadows

by cm (mumblemutter)



Series: Fitter, Happier [2]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Mindfuck, Original Character Death(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-25
Updated: 2011-07-25
Packaged: 2017-10-21 18:08:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/228093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mumblemutter/pseuds/cm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles wants to understand. Erik shows him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Longer Afraid of the Dark or Midday Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Not a sequel. A mirrorverse what-if, of sorts.

  The beginning:

Charles says, _I see the good in you too, Erik,_ and Erik thinks: then you understand why I must do what I have to do.

  Going back:

There's a mutant in a farmhouse in Nebraska; Charles finds her and they hitch a ride from a curiously compliant truck driver when their car breaks down. Everyone stops for Charles. She's merely a girl, a wisp of a thing in her pale summer dress in that kitchen that reeks of desperation and poverty, of familiarity, and she says, "Go to hell." Charles leans forward in his earnest little way, not understanding why you'd want to stay here when you could serve a purpose. Always hopeful, even though this is their fifth stop and the fourth rejection. "Go to hell," she says, and Charles lifts his gaze, his eyes bluer than the sky outside. Erik tilts his head: let's go.

She's staring at him too, this girl with her lank hair and bitten nails, and it's Erik's hand that she grabs when they turn to leave, it's Erik she whispers to when he instinctively leans down, the words making no sense at all, but then, all the sense in the world.

"What did she tell you," Charles asks, when they're outside, and this is how he always remembers Charles, mouth curved into a perpetually curious smile. Asking, when he could just take. "Only that her power is worthless. She's of no use to us." Charles nods his head, takes his words at face value. Erik falls a little bit then, all on his own.

  Years later:

When the Brotherhood is at its strongest, and Charles has mostly forgotten he once held kindness as a virtue, Erik will think of that girl, and wonder what happened to her. Wonder if she'd gotten what she wanted, if she saw the future laid out in that very moment, or if she could only set the wheels in motion, and all of this might have happened anyway.

He still misses that Charles sometimes, the one that was quick to laugh and would philosophise about the sanctity of life, all life, with the absolute conviction of the hopelessly naive. But perhaps that Charles would have died anyway, no matter what Erik did. Erik can't predict the future. All he can do is live with his choices and maybe convince himself he has no regrets.

  Slightly back:

On a beach in Cuba, white sand and the sun in his eyes, Erik falls to his knees. Charles stumbles forward, his face drawn, almost shattered, "You could have trusted me, Erik."

Erik thinks, _I'm sorry_ , but of course Charles can't hear him. He tries to rip the helmet off but it sticks, as if welded to his skin. It shouldn't be this hard. "I can't," he says, and the future wavers in front of him, threatens to break. _Do you want him by your side,_ she'd asked, and he hadn't thought that far ahead, not at that moment. "I want you by my side," he says now, too soon, and still the helmet refuses to come off. His hands are shaking, perhaps that's why.

"It's all right," Charles says, and he reaches out and takes the helmet off, as easily as that.

Everyone dies after that, a hundred missiles spiralling through the air, and Charles feels each and every one of them. Erik drags him close and presses their foreheads together as he screams, as all their deaths wash across them both, and in the distance he can hear Raven start to cry.

Moira fires her gun and Erik halts the bullets in their path, launches them back towards her. Her dying thought is, _oh, Charles,_ and then she's gone just like every other human there.

  Back again:

Years afterwards, when he finds that girl, insists Charles track her down even as he wrinkles his nose and goes, "But I don't see what the point is, Erik," she's a drifter, moving from town to town, never staying long.

"Join us," he tells her, and she says, "Go to hell." He asks her why, because sometimes even he can't imagine this life as an outcome he'd have chosen. She shrugs, says only, "Why not. Don't get better for me, no matter how the rest of it goes," and she touches his hand and he sees endless futures, all filled with equal amounts of misery. He breaks her neck then, quickly, and it's a mercy even though he can hear Charles, suddenly interested, saying, "Bring her back. She could prove useful."

Charles' disapproval is as sharp as the snap of her delicate neck, but the one thing Erik never managed to learn, despite all instincts and experiences telling him otherwise, is to fear Charles Xavier's disappointment.

  The first night:

He's wandering along the hallways of Charles' massive family compound, trailing his fingers across wood-panelled walls, and somehow he ends up in the lab, where Hank is rebuilding Cerebro and Charles is fussing around, offering suggestions that Hank either genuinely appreciates or is too polite to refute.

"Erik," Charles says, and there are lines of exhaustion around his eyes even as he beams.

"Charles," Erik says, and halts at the doorway, watches him bite his lip nervously, and possibly Erik would have wanted him anyway, regardless. Charles with his endless desire to do good, his smug insistence, _I know everything about you, Erik, everything_ , and he can't, not really. Not yet. Or things would be different. Charles with his _Erik?_ , a question mark, a polite knock that feels like a whisper across his mind. _What it is you want?_ And Erik can't help himself, really. A multitude of things: Charles on his knees, Erik's fingers in his hair. Charles' lips, red and swollen from being kissed, being fucked. Charles held down, begging for it. Begging for him.

A beaker drops, and Hank mutters, "Sorry, oh my god. I should, um, I know it's late -"

"You don't have to go," Erik says, not taking his eyes off Charles, who's reeling back, staggering slightly into a work table, but when he speaks his voice is clear, bright with confidence. "You've indulged me enough, Hank. We'll leave you to your work."

It lasts too long, that night. Charles traces every single scar on Erik's body, and Erik shows him where exactly it came from. _Stop it, please_ , Charles says at one point, _please_ , while Erik is still in him, his fingers gripped into Erik's biceps. _I'm so sorry, but I can't -_

Erik is razor wire tight, every nerve aflame, but he feels cleansed, and strong, and loved. _I'll stop_ , he says, but he doesn't, he can't, and eventually Charles stops asking.

  Afterwards:

"What are we, Charles," Raven would ask, in the beginning, wrapped in the protective skin of a woman that was blonde and curved and faintly repulsive, as exquisite as she was by most standards.

"Better," Charles would reply, and she'd turn her head in Erik's direction, glare mutely at him.

 _It's merely the truth,_ he'd tell Charles, who'd project it back to Raven in Erik's voice, and the first time he did that she physically snapped, her form returning back to its natural state in shock.

"Don't. Don't do that again," she said, and fled. After a while, she got used to it, just like the rest of them did.

  Somewhere in between:

Erik tells Charles, "I'm going to kill Shaw," and Charles moves a chess piece and replies, but they're just words and they mean nothing, they're just words and Erik doesn't even hear them anymore. Instead he feels the beat of Charles' heart beneath his chest and the delicate line of his throat when he mutters platitudes that he surely doesn't mean, not after everything.

Erik tells Charles, "You should have it in you to allow that," and the conviction tastes like iron under his tongue, and Charles snaps his head up and says something else, equally meaningless.

And when they're fucking, late at night when everyone else is asleep, Erik opens up his mind and whispers, _Can't you see. Look at what he did to me. They'll do the same to all of us, given a chance_ , and Charles shudders, all that pain, Erik, and, _Don't you think he deserves to die_ , and Charles whimpers, and comes, and says, _Yes._

  Forward again:

Once, he wears the helmet out of spite, or because of some minor disagreement that neither one of them is willing to budge on. Minor, or major, and Charles is still burdened with the faint tinges of morality sometimes. For all of the blood on his hands. He wears the helmet out of spite, despite the pain of disconnect, of not having Charles' constant presence in his mind, and Charles shows up soon afterwards, hurt etched on his face as if he'd been emptied too. "Oh, this is to be your method of negotiation then." Erik merely walks away, to Charles' churlish, "But I'm not budging. Too many people will die, Erik."

"Not the ones that count," Erik says, without pausing in his stride. "You should remember that."

But he can only hold on to the rage for so long before the need becomes too much, before he starts to sweat and even Raven snarls, "Get it together, please. Before I kill one of you." She's come a long way, Raven, from the girl that would consider two thousand deaths an immense and unbearable tragedy, even if those lives weren't worth a single thing. Now he believes her when she says that.

Charles goes, "Don't hide from me. You know I can't -" and Erik pushes him up against the wall with the helmet still on, kisses him until he's breathless and falling apart. Charles tries to grab for the helmet but Erik traps his wrists and twist them up high behind his back. "Erik," Charles says, but he doesn't struggle when Erik binds him with a thin piece of metal that might be from a candlestick, when he shoves him down onto the bed and drags his pants down. "Erik," Charles says, and Erik almost can't stand it, not being able to understand what the words mean. And how much worse it must be for Charles. Charles snaps his spine straight when Erik fucks him, eyes glazed and unfocused even as he keens, deep in the back of his throat.

When Erik finally removes the helmet, it's as if he's putting back on his favorite, most comfortable pair of shoes. He lets it fall to the floor and places his head on Charles' heaving chest, mouths _I'm sorry_ against his skin. Charles only sighs, and Erik releases his restraints so he can wrap his arms around him and pull him close.

  Back again:

The first night Charles has a dream that isn't his own, Erik is sitting in a motel room chair, watching him sleep. He starts to mutter at some point, mostly words in German that he shouldn't have needed to say out loud. Mostly _no_ , and _don't_ , and _make it stop, please_. Erik touches his fingers to Charles' shoulder and his eyes snap open. "He wants me to make him proud," he says before his gaze refocuses. "Erik, what?"

"Go back to sleep," Erik replies.

  And then:

This mutant has the charming but otherwise useless power of being able to tell what time it is, anywhere in the world. He agrees to meet them in a tiny cafe that sells the best coffee that Erik has ever had in this country, and is there at exactly three pm on the dot. Charles is patient with him, goes on about latent abilities and perhaps he had yet to discover his true power: would you like to return with us, we might be able to help.

Predictably, or perhaps somewhat influenced by Erik rolling his eyes in the background, he declines. Charles expresses disappointment once he leaves, and Erik mutters incredulously, "Surely not. He would have been useless to us."

"Everyone deserves a place, Erik."

"I'm sure he's far happier that his mutation affords him the ability to remain on the side of the mundane," Erik replies shortly, and he wants to be done with it, but there's a look on Charles' face, and the girl's pale blonde hair smelt like ash and sandalwood, and his hand sometimes still burned, at exactly the spot where she touched it. "It's not easy being different," he adds softly. "I should know." An irresistible lure, and Charles would say he's seen it all, but it's far different from having to relive it the way Erik does. The way he can't stop, ever, being that boy that was so afraid.

"I'm sorry, Erik," Charles says, and there's a tear on his cheek that Erik leans over to wipe away with his thumb; brazen, in a place like this, but worth it from the way Charles' starts, from his sharp intake of breath. "You're probably right," he says now. "Better to get the ones that can aid us in capturing Shaw, at least at first. It's too dangerous for the others."

And it's just like that then, and Erik is dizzy with the possibility of it.

  Endgame:

Charles says, _I see the good in you too, Erik,_ and Erik thinks: then you need to see everything else.


End file.
